[Permanent hiatus] Four unlikely companions must discover the secrets of an ancient relic and stop a war that will destroy everything. [Permanently stopped and cryogenically hibernating. I'm sorry to all fans, and thank you for your loyalty and reviews.]

The
battle was hopeless, the small party of hired soldiers could tell
that much. Already more than half their number lay dead, and the few
who struggled to hold their lines were falling like flies. The trolls
fought viciously, hacking and slashing as though mad. The mercenaries
desperately fought them off, their swords glinting in the setting
desert sun as it sank beneath the dunes on all sides of them.

The
youngest soldier there appeared hardly twenty, his brown hair falling
against his jaw. The young elf coughed, his lungs choked by smoke and
dust and the reek of fresh blood, but despite his watering eyes he
hauled himself to his feet, wielding his blade as he had done so many
times before. He was paid to do this, to fight battles that others
found difficult. A troll came at him and he sent it away screaming,
its left arm severed.

The
soldier, who was called Dart, threw his head back, letting a
battle-cry escape his lips. He charged forward, not caring that there
were several dozen more trolls than there were soldiers in his
regiment. He felt his sword slice through flesh, unfamiliar troll
flesh that screamed as it died. The young mercenary was a navy blue
and white blur, the standard tunic he wore stained with crimson,
letting his blade kill again and again. He dragged his sword through
the sinewy neck of a nearby troll, whirling to completely behead a
second. He narrowly parried a blow from another, the troll's
serrated blade slicing into his shoulder. A wound, but not a deep
one. Dart shouted in pain and rage, swiftly killing the troll that
dared to strike. The mercenary felt something hard slam into the back
of his skull, the iron gauntlet of a traitor soldier. Sinking to his
knees, darkness begged at the corners of his vision, but he fought it
as he weakly looked up at the man who had hit him.

"Captain
Shanath…?" Quite suddenly he felt everything going black as he
crumpled to the ground, his thought and his anger and his pain fading
into an oddly soothing black as he went unconscious.

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